Best tips about the 3d pillar

I suggest that we collect here the best tips and advice on the 3d pillar.

To start, here are a couple of websites where you can check which 3d pillar account gives the best interest:

https://www.moneyland.ch/de/saeule-3a-vergleich

It looks like there are currently only two companies offering 3d pillar based on ETFs:
https://www.vermoegenszentrum.ch

You can have several accounts. It makes sense to keep putting money into one account till you reach about 30k and then to stop (the reason is that on having your money payed back to you, you’ll be taxed by a lower rate if you don’t have all the money in one account). You can then move this whole account to another company, but you cannot split it. It makes sense to check the taxes of the commune you live in when you retire because taxes vary a lot for taking the money out.

If you don’t take it all in same tax year. Having multiple accounts but if you withdraw them all in the same year, say right before you move abroad, won’t help you save any taxes.

The tax is rather small anyway, and if you choose the right country to emigrate to it won’t even matter - some countries don’t tax the payout AND you can get the withdrawal tax reimbursed by the swiss at the same time.

On other hand if you choose a wrong country and withdraw after emigration, you can be hit by full income taxes on it in your new country… so choose wisely

2 Likes

Mind the Pillar 3a Tutorial

That’s great! Thanks! This forum really has lots of useful information.

… and since you obviously didn see this before posting, please mind the Guidepost to the mustachian forum :slight_smile:

The Fribourg School of Management compares pillar 3a funds of various providers. You could say that they are independent: http://www.heg-fr.ch/FR/HEG-FR/Communication-et-evenements/evenements/Pages/Vergleich-3a-Vorsorgefonds-2017.aspx

2017 comparison was published in the Handelszeitung: http://www.heg-fr.ch/FR/HEG-FR/Communication-et-evenements/evenements/Documents/20171629_HZ_Zeitung.pdf

Based on their buy recommendations i strongly suspect otherwise

In other words obsolete by now. Unless you’re into negative/zero yielding bonds & savings accounts, right now there’s pretty much exactly one (1) remotely interesting 3a provider in town and they appeared early 2018.

2 Likes

Why are you so criptic? You could use the same number of words and say the name of the provider. You mean VIAC? If so, didn’t they appear at the end of 2017? And why do you say it’s only “remotely” interesting? From what I’ve seen, VIAC offers a really nice fund.

Compared to say US 401k accounts it still has a long way to go, 0.5+% fee alone is obscenely expensive for a simple index fund. Although ok, it’s about breakeven wrt dividend taxes, so that’s why I’m saying it’s interesting. Let’s hope it’s just a start and competition will drive fees into ground in a few years.

5 Likes

same here.VZ is missing in that list. they have anything between 0 and 80% stocks based on passive ETFs/Indexfunds, and the TER is lower than almost any of those in that list. they are on the market at least since 2016

We have the same problem as VZ - VZ and VIAC both just offer investment plans, which are built out of ETF and Indexfunds. So we do not offer a 3a fund with one ISIN, so it’s hard to compare. This is why we created our own factsheets to help our customers to compare our offering to the competirors…